2017: Dreaded Year For Journalists In India

Nava Thakuria

As the year 2017 sets to bid adieu, India finds itself in an embracing situation with the annual statistics of 12 journalists either murdered or died in suspicious situations. The populous country, better known as the largest democracy in the globe, thus emerges as one of the hazardous place for media persons across the world after Mexico, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia etc.

India’s troubled neighbor Pakistan lost six professional journalists and a media student to assailants in the year. On the other hand, its other neighbours namely Bangladesh, Myanmar and Maldives witnessed the murder of one scribe each in the last 12 months. However the tiny neighbours like Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet (now under Chinese occupation) evaded journo-killing incidents during the period.

The killing spree of media persons in India began with Hari Prakash (killed on January 2) to continue with Brajesh Kumar Singh (January 3), Shyam Sharma (May 15), Kamlesh Jain (May 31), Surender Singh Rana (July 29), Gauri Lankesh (September 5), Shantanu Bhowmik (September 20), KJ Singh (September 23), Rajesh Mishra (October 21), Sudip Datta Bhaumik (November 21), Naveen Gupta (November 30) and Rajesh Sheoran (December 21).

On an average the South Asian nation loses five to six journalists to assailants annually, but the public angers against those killings remained lukewarm. However the murder of Kannada editor-journalist Ms Gauri at her Bangaluru (earlier known as Bangalore) residence sparked massive protests across the country. As the news of Gauri’s murder by unidentified gunmen spread, it immediately caught the attention of various national and international media rights organizations. Even the Communist leader and Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar was also influenced by the protest-demonstrations.

He personally joined in a rally at Agartala demanding justice over Gauri’s brutal killing, but when the young television reporter from his State fall prey to a mob violence, he preferred to remain silent. The Tripura based journalists, while strongly condemning the murder of Shantanu, had to demand a response from Sarkar. Later one more journalist’s (Sudip Datta) murder, also by a trooper belonged to the State police forces put Sarkar in an uncomfortable position. The otherwise popular chief minister, who also holds the State home portfolio, was accorded with blames that Tripura had earlier witnessed the murder of three media employees Sujit Bhattacharya, Ranjit Chowdhury and Balaram Ghosh together in 2013. India is ranked 136th among 180 countries in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index (2017) and it is just ahead of its neighbours Pakistan (139th position), Sri Lanka (141) and Bangladesh (146). Norway tops the list of media freedom index, where as one party-ruled North Korea (180) is placed at its bottom. India’s other neighbours namely Bhutan (84), Nepal (100), Maldives (117), Afghanistan (120) and Myanmar (131) ensure better press freedom.

Pakistan lost six journalists namely Muhammad Jan (January 12), Abdul Razzaque (May 17), Bakshish Ellahi (June 11), Haroon Khan (October 12), Samar Abbas & Utpal Das (untraced for weeks now) along with Mashal Khan (April 22), a novice scribe to assailants, whereas Bangladesh witnessed the murder of rural reporter Abdul Hakim Shimul on February 2.

Relatively peaceful Myanmar reported one journo-murder (Wai Yan Heinn) on April 16 and Maldives drew the attention of international media with the sensational killing of Yameen Rasheed, a journalist & human rights defender on April 23. According various international agencies over 95 media persons spread in 28 countries were killed in connection with their works since the beginning of 2017. The statistics were however more dangerous in previous years (120 fatalities in 2016, 125 killed in 2015, 135 in 2014, 129 in 2013, 141 in 2012, 107 in 2011, 110 in 2010, 122 in 2009, 91 in 2008 etc).

The situation this year deteriorated in Mexico (14 incidents of journo-killings), Syria (12), Iraq (9), Afghanistan (8), Yemen (8), the Philippines (6), Somalia (5), Honduras (4), Honduras (4), Nigeria (3), Russia (3), Turkey (3), Yemen (3), Guatemala (2), Peru (2), Dominican Republic (2), Colombia (2) etc emerged as the most dangerous countries for professional journalists in the bygone year. India lost six journalists to assailants in 2016, which was preceded by five cases in 2015. The country witnessed the murders of two scribes in 2014, but the year 2013 reported the killings of as many as 11 journalists.

The vibrant Indian media fraternity observed an unusual Gandhi Jayanti (birthday of India’s Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi) on October 2 this year to raise voices for ensuring safety, security and justice for working journalists across the country. Different press clubs, media bodies and civil society organisations also organized various demonstrations in support of their demands.

The vulnerable media community of the one-billion nation continues pursuing for a national action plan to safeguard the media persons in the line of military, police and doctors on duty. Their arguments are loud & clear, if the nation wants the journalists to do the risky jobs for the greater interest always, their security along with justice must also be ensured.

Insights into a new class of HIV retroviral drugs

Benjamin Mateus

A recent study published in the journal Nature Communications, titled “Quenching protein dynamics interferes with HIV capsid maturation,” details a newly discovered mechanism that can interfere with the maturation of the human immunodeficiency virus, preventing its ability to be infective. The research involves preventing the maturation of the protein shell called the capsid surrounding the virus.

Currently, there are more than 25 antiretroviral medications from six major classes available for treating HIV. None, however, inhibit maturation, a mechanism in a potentially new class of drugs which could benefit patients with multidrug-resistant infections. If this new approach continues to prove fruitful, and is developed into a treatment and distributed, it would give a great deal of relief to the 36.7 million men, women and children currently living with HIV.

The study was made possible through collaboration by the University of Delaware, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the University of Illinois and Vanderbilt University Medical center. A significant part of the research was funded by DFH Pharma, a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company focused exclusively in the treatment of HIV, which began to work with the National Cancer Institute to continue development on the next generation HIV maturation inhibitor drugs and identify new drugs in this class for clinical trials.

Initial work in the early 2000s by Dr. Eric Freed, a well-known scientist in the field of HIV assembly and release, in collaboration with Panacos Pharmaceuticals, discovered and produced the first class of maturation inhibitor drugs, Bevirimat. In 2009 Myriad Genetics bought the rights to the drug for $7 million. However, due to problems with Bevirimat’s formulation, they halted further development in 2010.

The focus of the present study is on deducing the mechanism of this new class of anti-retroviral drugs which interfere with the development of the HIV-1 virus inside a live body. It took seven years to complete, using complex instrumentation and multi-disciplinary expertise to study the dynamic nature of the virus’s early and late life cycle.

According to a statement by Professor Tatyana Polenova of the University of Delaware’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, “People used to fixate on the static structures of viruses, but they are not rock solid. Viruses like HIV and their constituent protein and nucleic acid molecules are dynamic entities that are constantly expanding and shrinking. Their motions are like breathing.”

Life cycle of the HIV virus

The molecules created by the HIV virus’s RNA operate within the host in concert, but deducing these complex synchronized motions requires expertise in quantitative biophysics using supercomputers to model and simulate the moving parts of the HIV virus. The research also integrated technology to image cells and molecules directly, known as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), to view how the virus actual reacts to different treatments.

A major focus of this work is studying the genetic material that codes the core structural proteins of retroviruses, known as Glycosaminoglycan (abbreviated, for obvious reasons, as “GAG”).

It is one of the essential “polyproteins” of HIV, which also include the matrix, capsid and spacer peptides (chains of amino acids). Capsid is particularly important because it is the protective protein shell of the virus.

Maturation inhibitors such as Bevirimat are thought to prevent the formation of a mature shell by entering the budding virus and binding to the cleavage site that would lead to maturation, thereby preventing this process, creating a vulnerability that the researchers are looking to exploit. The non-mature virus particle is non-infective.

Bevirimat stops the HIV virus from fully maturing, arresting its formation and greatly reducing the virus' ability to infect new hosts.

Cyclophilin A, a common human protein commandeered by the virus in the assembly of the capsid protein, is essential for its life cycle and infectivity. Using NMR imaging techniques to reveal nano-second to micro-second timescales of the virus formation, the research revealed that the Cyclophilin A loop is highly flexible in the assembled capsid. Modulation of the dynamics in this loop plays a role in HIV’s infectivity. In HIV, viruses that have mutations mimicking those similar to Bevirimat binding demonstrated dramatic attenuation as well as decreased infectivity suggesting this interplay as the mechanism of action for this novel class of anti-retroviral drugs.

HIV research began in 1985, four years after the first cases of an unusual type of pneumonia described among groups of men having sex with other men in the United States and two years after HIV was first identified. The first anti-retroviral drugs were introduced in 1987, followed by combination retroviral therapy in 1996 which led to decreased AIDS-defining diagnosis and mortality by 60 to 80 percent. Despite these efforts, however, HIV became and has remained a worldwide epidemic that has so far claimed 35 million lives, comparable to the number of casualties, military and civilian, in World War I.

Impact of HIV around the world

And while 69 countries saw a decline in their population infected with HIV (or with its more advanced stage, AIDS), UNAIDS has warned that progress in preventing new infections is not occurring fast enough to meet global targets. It predicts that some regions of the world—such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia—have seen new infections rise by 60 percent since 2010. Of the world's population, 0.8 percent of adults have the virus and 30 percent of these are not aware they are infected.

Nearly 4 million new cases were reported in the past two years and 1 million have died from AIDS-related illnesses. No country is unaffected, though eastern and southern Africa suffer the majority of current cases, where 19.4 million people are infected. In countries such as Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland HIV/AIDS infection rates among adults exceed 20 percent.

New Zealand government offers false promises to reduce poverty

Tom Peters

On December 14, New Zealand’s Labour Party-led government announced spending details for its first 100-day plan, promising to start reducing poverty. Finance Minister Grant Robertson called the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) measures, described as a mini-budget, “the most significant package to lift children out of poverty in recent memory.”

The Labour-Greens-New Zealand First coalition took office in October after nine years of rule by the conservative National Party, which implemented drastic austerity measures following the 2008 financial crisis. The Nationals underfunded health and education, froze public sector wages, increased the Goods and Services Tax, partly privatised electricity companies and began selling off state housing.

Labour supported the austerity agenda, aimed at making the working class pay for the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s. Now in government, it is desperately seeking to contain widespread anger and anti-capitalist sentiment produced by soaring social inequality and poverty.

In October, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the fact that over 41,000 people (1 percent of the population) were homeless was a “blatant failure” of capitalism. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, leader of the right-wing populist NZ First, promised to restore “capitalism with a human face.”

The government’s promises to eliminate poverty and homelessness are hollow. They are aimed at buying time while the financial and corporate elite prepares the next round of attacks on the working class.

The HYEFU included an extra $8.4 billion of spending over the next five years, funded by cancelling the National Party’s planned income tax cuts. This mainly consists of a $5.5 billion Families Package, including increased tax credits for low-income families, a newborn baby bonus, a boost to the accommodation supplement, a winter energy payment for beneficiaries and pensioners and more paid parental leave. The government claims that 384,000 poor families will be better off by an average of $75 per week. There is also $2.5 billion to fund the election promise of one year’s free tertiary education for new students.

TVNZ applauded the changes as “a feel good budget” that was “fiscally responsible.” New Zealand Herald columnist Audrey Young said Ardern’s “stunning” mini-budget “has instantly delivered on the government’s top priority, the area in which she has given herself oversight, child poverty reduction.”

In fact, the spending promises will not address the social crisis, even if fully implemented. The government claims it will halve child poverty by 2021 by lifting 88,000 children above the poverty line of 50 percent of the median household income.

However, the 2017 Child Poverty Monitor, based on Ministry of Social Development data and using a threshold of 60 percent of the median income, calculated that 290,000, or 27 percent of children live in poverty. The latter measurement is accepted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

According to Westpac bank, Labour’s welfare changes, which will take affect next July, equate to only a 2-3 percent increase in the main Jobseeker Benefit and a 2 percent rise in superannuation payments. Poor families also will receive up to $1,400 a year more per child under the Working for Families tax credit scheme.

In most cases, however, the increases will not keep pace with the rising cost of living. Median rents in Wellington rose 8.7 percent during the past 12 months alone. Auckland Council recently reported that a rental house in the lower quarter of the market costs an average of $552 a week, 18 percent more than four years ago.

Labour will keep the National government’s requirement for sole parents to look for work, combined with punitive sanctions designed to push people off welfare.

As the danger of world war increases, driven by US threats against China, North Korea and Russia, more funds will be diverted from welfare and social programs to boost the military. The new government fully supports the military alliance with the US and is whipping up an anti-Chinese witch-hunt to prepare the population for war. Immigrants from China have been repeatedly scapegoated for low wages and the housing crisis, and opposition MPs with links to China have been denounced as security threats.

In 2016 Labour, NZ First and the Greens agreed with National’s $20 billion military spending program to upgrade the armed forces and make them “interoperable” with the US and other allied troops. Just before the mini-budget was announced, Defence Minister Ron Mark revealed that the cost of upgrading two navy frigates had blown out to $639 million from an initial estimate of $374 billion. The army, navy and air force are running a highly visible recruitment campaign and the Defence Force has requested funding to upgrade old barracks buildings.

Labour has ruled out increasing corporate tax rates to raise revenue. Before the election, Labour and the Greens agreed to “budget responsibility rules” to placate big business. These include a commitment to keep spending below 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), about the same level as the previous National Party administration, maintain operating surpluses and reduce net core government debt to 20 percent of GDP within five years.

Spending promises are reliant on Treasury’s forecast of GDP growth reaching 3.6 percent by June 2019, based on dubious predictions of a growing and stable world economy. A blunt statement by Westpac economists accused Treasury of “wishful thinking,” based on “economic forecasts that we think are far too optimistic.” If the tax take fell short, the government would have to make “difficult choices.”

Annual growth has slowed from 4.4 percent in mid-2016 to 2.7 percent this year. The Reserve Bank has warned previously that a downturn in the speculative housing bubble could trigger a broader crisis. The government’s nationalist pledge to slash foreign student and immigrant numbers by as much as 40 percent per year is also likely to affect growth.

New Zealand depends heavily on agricultural exports and is highly vulnerable to any economic downturn, particularly in Australia, its largest trading partner, and China, its second largest.

Economist Rod Oram wrote on the Newsroom web site that Treasury’s notion of “propitious and enduring global conditions of strengthening growth, low inflation and low interest rates” could prove to be a “fairy tale” because of the rise of economic nationalism. Pointing to deepening trade conflicts at the WTO, he described the US as “belligerent, irrational and isolated. No one can forecast where this will push the world.”

Some Labour Party supporters have warned that the government’s “transformational” promises are already being discredited. Writing on the trade union-funded Daily Blog, columnist Chris Trotter lamented “Robertson’s fetish for paying down Crown debt” and determination not to raise taxes. He added that aside from the Families Package and increased subsidies for tertiary education, Labour “intends to keep new spending at levels well below” the previous National government.

Workers should not be fooled by the Ardern government’s “caring” rhetoric and false promises to address poverty and homelessness. Labour, NZ First and the Greens are parties of big business and imperialist war. Their real agenda is shown by moves to recruit thousands more police, further restrict the right to strike, whip up nationalism and anti-Chinese xenophobia, and boost spending on the armed forces. Through these mechanisms the ruling elite is preparing to confront the inevitable growth of working class opposition to austerity and war.

Australian police handed more military weaponry

John Roberts

Police in Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), have extended the use of military assault rifles. The Public Order and Riot Squad (PORS) will carry these weapons for the first time during the Christmas-New Year period in the state’s capital, Sydney.

At a media conference in Sydney on December 18, Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, commander of the 16,000-strong state police force, said 47 PORS officers had completed training with Colt M-4 carbines. Another 100 would be trained by the middle of next year.

The expanded access to M-4s will double the number of police with military-standard weaponry, previously issued only to smaller tactical units for alleged terrorism, hostage, siege and serious armed offender incidents. All NSW police are armed with pistols on duty.

Fuller claimed that the extension was necessary because of the increased threat of terrorism. He stated that while the federal government’s terrorism threat level had remained “probable” since September 2014, he needed to put the more heavily armed police onto the streets if, and as soon as, the threat level was raised to high.

This claim is false and misleading. The PORS is specifically tasked with suppressing protests and social disturbances, not terrorism.

The PORS was formed in October 2005 after confrontations between police and working-class youth in two of Sydney’s most impoverished areas—the inner suburb of Redfern, with a large Aboriginal population, in March 2004, and the western suburb of Macquarie Fields in February 2005. The clashes followed police chases of youth that resulted in their deaths—Thomas Hickey in Redfern and Dylan Raywood and Matthew Robertson in Macquarie Fields.

The then Labor Party state government of Premier Bob Carr exploited the protests to test new ways of quelling unrest, including the formation of the permanent riot squad.

Until now, the PORS specialist equipment has featured rubber bullets, capsicum spray, two types of batons, handcuffs and cable flex-cuffs and protective clothing, supposedly to counter petrol bombs and projectiles. The issuing of M-4s to “public order” police is a sign of the further militarisation of the police, an international phenomenon, in anticipation of increasing social tensions.

Decades of pro-market economic restructuring, destruction of manufacturing and other full-time jobs and cuts to government services have produced high youth unemployment and unprecedented social inequality.

Fuller indicated that the current Liberal-National Coalition government of Premier Gladys Berejiklian is planning more extensive issuing of the assault rifles. “[P]erhaps next year, depending on the environment, you may see officers deployed in a standard patrolling type method with these types of firearms,” he said.

Fuller denied any immediate plans to equip the entire police force with such weapons. It was definitely possible, “but certainly not in the coming months. We need to have that conversation.”

The M-4 is widely used by the US Army and Australian Special Forces. It has a 30-round magazine firing the 5.56 x 45mm NATO military round with a muzzle velocity of 910 metres per second. If used in full automatic mode, an M-4 can fire 770-950 rounds per minute. Because of the rounds’ kinetic energy, the effects are horrific. The weapon is effective out to 600 metres for aimed shots but lethal impacts extend beyond this.

At the media conference, staged at Sydney’s central bayside Circular Quay, PORS members paraded around, brandishing their new weapons among workers, shoppers and café patrons. It was an intimidating display. Police Minister Troy Grant said some people would be “confronted” by police having “a greater capacity in relation to their firearms and their arsenal,” but the community should be “comforted” by the knowledge the police had the capacity to protect it.

Last June, when the re-arming of the PORS was first announced, the government unveiled legislation to give police more legal protection if they use their weapons in a “pre-emptive” shooting of a suspect in a “terrorist” incident. These moves will only increase the likelihood of police killing people with impunity.

Between 1989 and 2011, 105 people were shot dead by police in Australia, according to a 2013 report by the Australian Institute of Criminology. All but one were declared justified by coroners. Not one police officer was charged.

As the pretext for its June announcement, the Berejiklian government used the December 2014 Lindt café siege in central Sydney. The federal and state governments falsely labeled that incident, which resulted in the deaths of two of the 18 hostages, as a terrorist attack. In reality, the hostage-taker, Man Haron Monis, was mentally unstable and well known to police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

The siege was politically exploited to further extend some of the world’s most anti-democratic “counter-terrorism” laws, which include detention and interrogation without charge. The definitions of terrorist-related offences have also been broadened to potentially cover protest actions including against Australia’s participation in Washington’s wars.

US and India pressure Sri Lanka over port deal with China

Saman Gunadasa

The Sri Lanka government formally handed over Hambantota Port to China Merchant Port Holdings (CMPH) on December 9, after almost two years of negotiations. The port is located on the country’s southern coast, close to some of the world’s busiest sea lanes.

Addressing the ceremonial hand-over, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared that Sri Lanka was “on its way to being the hub of the Indian Ocean.” Its port facilities—in Colombo, Hambantota and Trincomalee—were “part of the modern maritime silk route.”

China’s Xinhua news agency reported that Sri Lanka had “joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)” through the Hambantota Port joint venture.

The US and India, its strategic regional ally, are hostile to Beijing’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region. The BRI is aimed at connecting more than 60 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe via land and sea, ensuring China’s ongoing access to oil and other energy supplies.

Under the Hambantota deal, Sri Lanka has sold a 70 percent stake in the port to CMPH via a 99-year lease, while retaining a 30 percent share under the state-owned Sri Lanka Ports Authority.

Two Chinese companies established to manage Hambantota Port operations were given a 32-year tax holiday. Prior to the deal, the government retrenched 435 port workers. Colombo is also handing over 15,000 acres of land near the port for Chinese companies to build an industrial zone.

After coming to power in January 2015, President Maithripala Sirisena suspended various Chinese-funded ventures, including the multi-million dollar Port City of Colombo project. Sirisena and his allies said the projects were initiated under former President Mahinda Rajapakse, accusing him of corruption.

The real reason for the suspensions, however, was fierce opposition from the US and India to Rajapakse’s close economic and political relations with China. Beijing provided loans and investments as well as arms to Colombo for its war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Mounting government debt and falling national export earnings, however, have forced the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government to turn back to China for financial help. The government revived talks with Beijing and, after modifications to the terms of the China-funded ventures, the projects resumed. This included the Hambantota Port deal, which has been used to reduce Colombo’s debts to Beijing, recently estimated at more than $US8 billion.

At the Hambantota Port ceremony, Wickremesinghe enthusiastically held up a large replica of a $292 million cheque—the first instalment of the $1.12 billon CMPH is paying for its share of the port. “With this agreement,” he declared, “we have started to pay back the loans.”

The US and India oppose the port deal and are stepping up their political pressure on Sri Lanka. Asked about the joint venture on December 14, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar declared: “We continue to take up with Sri Lanka issues related to security concerns in the region and expect that our Sri Lankan friends will keep in mind our security concerns and sensitivities.”

In other words, New Delhi regards Colombo’s move as a threat to Indian “security” and will respond accordingly.

Colombo attempted to appease Indian concerns during the Hambantota Port negotiations by offering India a 70 percent stake in Mattala Mahinda Rajapakse International Airport, which is located close to Hambantota, and a share in the development work at Trincomalee’s deep sea port.

Wickremesinghe visited India last month and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss these deals. The Indian press reported that talks were also held on Indian investments in the Colombo Port’s eastern terminal.

The Western press has published concerned reports on Colombo-Beijing relations and the Hambantota Port deal. A New York Times article on December 12 quoted Constantino Xavier, a fellow at Carnegie India, who said: “India has been overwhelmed by China’s offensive in its strategic backyard.”

On December 20, Project Syndicate published a hostile critique on the port deal by Professor Brahma Chellaney from the pro-US Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. Headlined, “China’s Creditor Imperialism,” the article accused China of using state loans to take control of other countries. “[A]s Sri Lanka’s experience starkly illustrates, Chinese financing can shackle its ‘partner’ countries,” Chellaney wrote.

Chellaney ludicrously claimed that Beijing was playing the role of 19th century Britain, which occupied Hong Kong via a 99-year lease, following the Opium Wars. “Now, China is applying the imperial 99-year lease concept in distant lands.”

Referencing a Chinese company’s acquisition of the Mediterranean port of Piraeus from the cash-strapped Greek government for $436 million, he declared: “China has encouraged its companies to bid for outright purchase of strategic ports, where possible.”

Chellaney also noted China’s leasing of the Darwin port in Australia, a military installation in Djibouti, a few miles away from a US naval base, and its activities in Turkmenistan, Kenya and other countries. These countries, he claimed, “have been ensnared in a Chinese debt trap, forcing them to confront agonising choices in order to stave off default.”

In September, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice Wells told a congressional committee: “China is providing non-concessional loans that promote unsustainable debt burdens, which I think are increasingly now of concern to the Sri Lankan people in the government.”

The US and Indian response to growing Chinese influence in the region has been to step up their threats. When the Maldives government expressed its support for China’s BRI and signed a Free Trade Agreement with China, India’s Raveesh Kumar declared that New Delhi expected the island nation to be “sensitive to our concerns in keeping with its India first policy.” This was also a warning to the Sri Lankan government, which is currently negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with China.

At the same time as seeking financial assistance from Beijing, the Sri Lankan government is integrating the country into the US-led military build-up against China. The bitter reaction of the US and India to the Hambantota Port deal is a warning to Colombo that it must not deviate from a pro-US strategic agenda.

Peru’s President Kuczynski pardons Fujimori after surviving impeachment

Armando Cruz

A dramatic chain of political events has unfolded in Peru over the last three weeks, culminating in President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s (PKK) December 24 pardon of former president Alberto Fujimori, who was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in jail for human rights violations, among other crimes perpetrated by his government.

Despite the assurances of the Kuczynki government that the pardon was not “negotiated”, the main Peruvian newspapers are confirming what the pardon really represents in political terms:

In mid-November, as part of the investigation into the ramifications in Peru of Brazil’s ever-widening Lava Jato corruption scandal, Brazilian construction magnate Marcelo Odebrecht revealed to Peruvian attorneys that he had hired Kuczynski as an “advisor” after his term as prime minister under the government of President Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006). Earlier, Odebrecht had confirmed he had paid bribes to Toledo for the right to lucrative infrastructure projects, prompting the former president to flee Peru and seek refuge in California.

Kuczynski denied any involvement in corrupt deals with Odebrecht, but on December 13, Rosa Bartra, the chairwoman of Congressional “Lava Jato Committee”—and member of the Fujimorista Fuerza Popular party (FP)—presented at a press conference details of payments by Odebrecht to two companies that had been established by Kuczynski and his Chilean associate, millionaire businessman Gerardo Sepulveda, in the United States while PKK had served as a minister under Toledo. These two companies served as “consultants” to Odebrecht and were awarded more than half a million US dollars.

Kuczynski admitted his co-ownership of these companies but still denied any wrongdoing, claiming everything was directed by Sepúlveda. Then, he also admitted that he had worked in another company established by Sepúlveda through which he directly received “some money” working as a private consultant to Odebrecht.

This triggered the call for the president’s impeachment. On December 15, a vote to initiate impeachment proceedings was passed with 93 votes in the 130-seat Congress. The main charge leveled against the president was “moral inability”—a grounds established in the country’s constitution—for having lied to the people about his real links to Odebrecht corruption.

The fujimorista FP, the main proponent of the impeachment, has, of course, other reasons to implement a restructuring of the government. Its leader Keiko Fujimori—daughter of the jailed former president—is herself implicated in the Odebrecht scandal, but definite proofs have yet to appear. Lawyers from the Justice System and the attorney general’s office who have been investigating Fujimori’s daughter over supposed payments by Odebrecht and a drug-related scandal have been harassed and threatened by FP members and congressmen.

As an expert on Latin America told the New York Times: “As in Brazil [with Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment], they’re not pursuing corruption charges to clean Peru of corruption, they’re using the charges to remove their enemies from power”.

However, as every caucus in Congress—except for the one comprised of Kuczynski’s party—voted for the impeachment debate, it seemed that there was a general consensus to bring a premature end to Kuczynski’s government. His approval rating—27 percent—is alarming for a president who just have ended his first year in office, and now the Odebrecht revelations have further discredited his administration.

A day before the impeachment vote, Kuczynski appeared with his two vice presidents, Martín Vizcarra and Mercedes Araóz, in a televised message and once again claimed no wrongdoings in relation to his work with Odebrecht and called the move toward impeachment a “constitutional coup”. He added that neither Vizcarra nor Araóz wanted to take part in a government “that is born out of an unfair and undemocratic maneuver”.

The pre-recorded message served as a warning that if the impeachment went through, no vice-president would take the presidency, and the post would then fall to the president of the Congress, Luis Galarreta, a staunch fujimorista .

The warning seems to have had an effect on the pseudo left caucus of Nuevo Peru. Days before the impeachment vote they began to campaign against it. They argued that the impeachment procedures were too “fast” and pointed out that Dilma Rousseff in Brazil had far more time to prepare her defense before the vote. Their battle cry against the impeachment vote was the hashtag #NiGolpismoNiLobismo (“Neither Putschism nor Lobbysim”), with “Lobbyism” intended to indicate the president’s supposed corruption.

In fact, the pseudo-left congressional caucuses of Nuevo Perú and Frente Amplio have been defenders of the stability of the bourgeois order even since before Kuczynski took power. The leaders of both caucuses (Veronika Mendoza and Marco Arana, respectively) called for a vote for Kuczynski—a multimillionaire former Wall Street banker—in last year’s general election in order to stop Keiko Fujimori from coming to power. Since then, in Congress, they promised not to be an “obstructionist” opposition and defended Kuczynski from the FP’s political attacks on his government.

While Arana’s Frente Amplio initially was one of the main proponents of the impeachment, Nuevo Perú declared the impeachment to be a plot to carry out a hostile takeover of the government by the fujimoristas. They dubbed it the Fujigolpe (“fujicoup”).

On December 21, the impeachment vote took place, and during the speeches by members of Congress preceding it, the media reported that someone had leaked a medical report on Alberto Fujimori’s health which proposed a pardon.

When the vote came, 10 congress members from the FP abs������tained, while all 10 members of the Nuevo Perú caucus stood up and walked out of the hall in order to exclude themselves from the vote. TV cameras showed that as they walked away, members from other caucuses began to applaud them.

In the end, the impeachment was defeated as it only got 79 of the needed 87 votes.

The 10 fujimorista “rebels”, who didn’t follow the party line and abstained, were led by Kenji Fujimori, brother of Keiko and Alberto’s son who, according to many reports, has been trying for years to topple his sister and become the new party leader and the next presidential candidate for the fujimoristas .

Kenji has also been advocating for his father’s pardon more than his sister. It is reported that Alberto Fujimori favors him, and that both father and son are more supportive of the Kuczynski’s government.

Kenji’s involvement led to speculation that Kuczynski’s government had negotiated a pardon for Alberto Fujimori, but this was denied by government spokesmen.

Two days after the failed impeachment, El Comercio, the right-wing corporative voice of the Peruvian ruling class, published an op-ed criticizing both Kuczynski and the opposition FP.

The op-ed argued that Kuczynski had no reasons to celebrate, since his position is now more precarious than before due to the Odebrecht revelations. It lamented the fact that the president, who comes entirely from the business world, hasn’t managed to implement “economic reforms” (anti-working class policies) and that the still failing economy hasn’t improved, despite the rising price of minerals, Peru’s main export.

As for the FP, El Comercio declared that it is time for the party to abandon its aggressive stance towards the government, pointing to a poll showing that 61 percent of Peruvians favor the dissolution of Congress, the one institution under the FP’s thumb.

Then, the following day, as most Peruvians families were gathering to celebrate Christmas Eve, came the official announcement of Fujimori’s pardon.

As far back as 2011, Kuczynski had declared that if he came to power he would pardon Fujimori. He went so far as to support Keiko Fujimori in the 2011 elections when the Peruvian ruling class was concerned about the rise of the nationalist Ollanta Humala, now also jailed and awaiting trial for having received bribes from Odebrecht.

However, during the 2016 elections, as he was being supported by the pseudo-left against Keiko Fujimori, Kuczynski pledged not to pardon him. Once in power, he declared that he was revising this pledge due to concerns about Fujimori’s health, which have been proven a fabricated pretext. Fujimori until now had been living in a golden jail on the outskirts of Lima, and the only real health issues doctors could find were non-life-threatening hypertension and depression.

Fujimori received not only a pardon, but also a derecho de gracia (“prerogative of mercy”), the suspension of all existing legal proceedings against him.

In the aftermath of the pardon, the media—even amongst the government’s supporters— confirmed in reports that the pardon had been negotiated behind the scenes during the impeachment vote. Journalists showed how certain moments during the impeachment debate gave away what was happening, such as when Kenji Fujimori engaged in a heated debate with other high-ranking FP members, and when FP congressmen were called by cellphone by Alberto Fujimori himself who asked them to abstain from voting.

On Christmas, the president himself gave a thoroughly pathetic TV message supporting his decision to pardon Fujimori citing the false ill-health claims of the former president and claiming that despite the “excesses” and “mistakes” of his government he also did “good things”. Finally he told young people to leave the “hate” behind and “turn the page”.

Fujimori’s pardon has unleashed a wave of protests, mostly by young people, in the capital and other main cities. The relatives of the victims of those killed and disappeared during Fujimori’s government have asked international human rights organizations to condemn Kuczynski’s actions, and even the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN have voiced “concern” over the pardon.

On top of this, Kuczynki’s government has been shaken by the resignation of congressmen, ministers and even journalists and artists working in state television in the wake of the pardon.

It’s difficult to predict whether the pardon will finally cement an alliance between the government and the fujimorista right. If that it’s the case, then the ruling class will finally have a united government for its program of a frontal assault on the working class in order to prop up capitalism in Peru.

Italian election campaign officially opens

Peter Schwarz 

Italian President Sergio Matarella dissolved parliament on Thursday, officially opening the election campaign. The election will take place on March 4.

The decision came as no surprise. When the then Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (PD) resigned a year ago, after losing the constitutional referendum, an election date was already being discussed. Matarella insisted that a new valid electoral law and budget for the coming year be passed beforehand. Both have since happened. The budget was passed by the Senate, the second chamber of parliament, on the Saturday before Christmas.

Nevertheless, the announcement of the election has caused concern in European capitals. “As the EU tries to regain cohesion after the shock of the UK’s Brexit vote and speed up its economic recovery, the looming Italian election arguably represents the biggest political obstacle,” wrote the Financial Times.

The “likely scenarios after the vote” are “a hung parliament, a grand coalition or a populist government with a much more confrontational attitude towards Brussels—including plans to question Italy’s membership of the single currency.” With this, Italy will remain “the weak link” in the European Union.

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who, like his predecessor Matteo Renzi and his predecessor before him Enrico Letta, comes from the Democratic Party (PD), tried to spread optimism at his press conference at the end of the year. Italy was doing much better now than at the beginning of the 2013 legislature, he said. The economic situation was pleasing as Italy is “no longer the famous tail light of Europe.”

However, from the viewpoint of the mass of the population, the situation looks completely different. The generation of 18-year-olds who can vote for the first time has never experienced anything but social and political decline throughout their lives. Since Italy joined the eurozone in 1999 it has not experienced any real economic growth. Industry produces less today than it did nearly two decades ago.

The unemployment rate is officially 11.1 percent, well above the EU average, and the real figure is likely to be much higher. Among young people, the official unemployment rate is 34.7 percent. A national debt of 130 percent of gross domestic product, more than twice as much as the EU allows, ensures that social decline will continue.

In the 18 years since the introduction of the euro, Italy has had 11 governments. Right-wing and centre-left governments followed one after the other; their politics hardly differed. While the right-wingers under Silvio Berlusconi were lining their own pockets, the centre-left governments under the leadership of the PD sought to put the public finances back in order at the expense of the working class.

The result is a deep alienation of the population from all political parties, which has led to a complete fragmentation of the party system.

According to the current polls, the strongest party is the Five Star Movement. Founded in 2009 by comedian Beppe Grillo, it had experienced a meteoric rise through its denunciation of the corruption of the ruling elites.

Meanwhile, the Five Star Movement has passed its zenith. Wherever it is in power in municipalities, such as the capital Rome, it has proved to be as corrupt as the old parties it denounced.

Politically, the Five Star Movement has moved sharply to the right. It represents a nationalist, anti-refugee course and sits in the same parliamentary group in the European Parliament as UKIP, which led the campaign for the Brexit referendum.

The 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio is the Five Star Movement’s lead candidate in the parliamentary election. However, it is far from having a government majority, with its current support running at 26 percent. In contrast to the old election law, the strongest party will no longer receive a “bonus” following the election, awarding it additional seats. The Five Star Movement has so far rejected forming a coalition with any other party.

According to the current polls, the strongest force could be a right-wing alliance, with 35 percent, in which former head of government Silvio Berlusconi pulls the strings. After his removal from office in 2011, at the height of the debt crisis and involvement in numerous sex and bribery scandals, the now 81-year-old billionaire was politically isolated. Even now he is not allowed to hold political office due to a tax evasion conviction. Nevertheless, he could play the key role in forming the next government.

The right-wing alliance is extremely unstable. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and right-wing Lega Nord, under 44-year-old Matteo Salvini, are competing for its leadership. They are currently polling with 16 percent and 14 percent respectively. The Lega Nord has developed from a northern Italian separatist movement into a national party and bases itself on the French National Front. Berlusconi is credited with concluding a coalition with the PD after the election, while some observers see a coming together of the Lega Nord with the Five Star Movement as possible.

In current surveys the former ruling PD is running at only 23 percent. It is campaigning with its leader Matteo Renzi as lead candidate, who hopes to return to the post of prime minister. However, current incumbent Paolo Gentiloni has far higher popularity ratings than Renzi.

The 42-year-old Renzi, who set out to “scrap” the elites in 2014, is hated by workers for his labour market reforms. The PD, like many other social democratic parties in Europe, is in disarray. In the past year, two groups split off and together with Sinistra Italiana (SI, Italian Left) founded the Liberi e Uguali (LeU, Free and Equal). The former ruling PD is campaigning with Pietro Grasso as lead candidate, who has made a name for himself as a prosecutor and judge against the Sicilian mafia. Currently, they are polling 6.5 percent.

The upcoming election campaign threatens to become one of the dirtiest in Italian history. Since no party has an answer to the burning social issues, they strive to outdo each other in their anti-refugee rhetoric and right-wing demagogy.

While the Lega Nord and the Five Star Movement would no longer allow any refugees into the country and want to deport as many as possible, the Democrats boast that they have drastically reduced the inflow across the Mediterranean. Interior Minister Marco Minniti has agreed a dirty deal with Islamist militias and smugglers in Libya who are paid and armed by the Italian government to intercept, detain and torture refugees.

The social opposition of the Italian working class finds no political expression in the current political system. It will look for other, more militant ways to catch its breath.

Germany: Demands grow for Merkel’s resignation

Peter Schwarz

Demands for the resignation of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, are getting louder. In the past few days, leading representatives of the business community, political parties (including Merkel’s own Christian Democratic Union, CDU) and the media, while not calling for the chancellor’s immediate resignation, have insisted instead on an “orderly transition” in one or two years at the latest. The longer negotiations on a new ruling coalition continue, the more likely such forces will press for a rapid change at the top of the government.

Der Spiegel appeared on December 16 with an editorial titled “The ruins of Merkelism.” It bluntly called upon the chancellor to resign: “If Merkel is so concerned about stable relations, then she should be able to see that this is precisely what the country lacks if she surpasses the record periods in government of Adenauer, 14 years, and Kohl, 16 years.”

On December 20, Handelsblatt devoted four pages to the theme “Business leaders distance themselves from Merkel.” It cited a number of corporate bosses and economists who warn against a “continuation of existing policies” and urge fresh “reforms.”

Jürgen Heraeus, head of the technology group which bears his name, declared: “France and Austria have shown us how fresh, unused forces tackle courageous reforms or reform their own parties.” The head of the retail chain Tengelmann, Karl-Erivan Haub, complained: “Germany is merely managed, but no longer reformed.” He called for “a renewal of personal at the head of both main parties.” He also cited Austria as role model.

On December 27, YouGov published a survey showing that only 36 percent of respondents favour that Merkel should remain in office for another four years, while 47 percent call for her resignation.

The regional papers responded by joining the chorus of those calling for her resignation: “The coming weeks will demonstrate to Merkel: randomness does not bring percentage points. Whoever fails to deliver, is finished.” (Stuttgarter Nachrichten) “The Union should prepare for the end of the Merkel era and regulate the succession.” (Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung) “If Merkel is concerned about the prospect of being tossed out of office, then she should use the time to establish a successor” (Rheinische Post).

In interviews two leading representatives of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), Wolfgang Kubicki and Nicola Beer, indicated that their party would be ready to participate in a new government if there was a replacement for Merkel as chancellor. Juso (SPD youth movement) chairman Kevin Kühnert called on the Social Democratic Party not to enter a grand coalition, because it would “extend” Merkel’s term in office.

Handelsblatt reported that pressure was mounting on Merkel in both her own party and the sister party, the Christian Social Union to “organise her last major act, a changeover.” Merkel had “recognised the seriousness of the situation” and was striving to involve younger CDU politicians, such as State Secretary Jens Spahn (37), middle size business representative Carsten Linnemann (40) and the head of the Young Union (youth movement of the CDU) Paul Ziemiak (32). At the same time a “generational change” had already begun with the replacement of the Saxony premier Stanislaw Tillich (58) by Michael Kretschmer (42), both CDU, and the Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer (68) by Markus Söder (50), both CSU.

While there is much talk in the media about a generational change and complaints about Merkel’s long tenure in office, virtually nothing is said about the political reasons for the pressure for change. With 12 years in office Merkel can look back at the third longest term in the history of the Federal Republic (after Kohl and Adenauer) but, at the age of 63, she is younger than both of them when they resigned (Kohl was 68 and Adenauer, 87).

In an article published on December 23, we wrote: “Negotiations on forming a new government are dragging on so long because the ruling elite requires an entirely different regime to launch a vast programme of rearmament, pursue great power policies abroad and impose itself ruthlessly at home.”

That is also behind the growing pressure on Merkel. Even though her name is synonymous with rescuing the banks with billions of public money, harsh austerity policies in Europe and the return by Germany to great power politics and militarism, this is considered inadequate by those speaking on behalf of the German ruling class.

This is most clearly expressed by Dirk Kurbjuweit in the above cited editorial in Der Spiegel. “Merkelism” represents “consensus, peace, stability over everything,” he writes. “Therefore, the leader of Merkelism cannot provoke, must show no clear contours, avoid any conflict, and calm citizens. … Merkel was unable to introduce major reforms, this would have caused strife, an end to peace and quiet and Biedermeier.”

By “major reforms” Kurbjuweit means, on the one hand, further attacks on social rights and gains in line with the demands of big business and finance and, on the other hand, an accelerated program of rearmament for conflicts at home and abroad. Such policies are highly unpopular, and—to employ the vocabulary of Der Spiegel—threaten to disturb the “calm of citizens.” As a result, such policies are barely discussed in public, but all the more so in business and military circles.

One example is the new study by the government think tank German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which states that Germany must “do everything in its power to establish Europe as an independent global political power factor based on its own geopolitical conceptions.” Only “as a power factor with independent creative potential” does Germany have “a chance to influence the international order.” To this end, “the total share of public expenditure for the shaping of German foreign relations” (i.e., foreign, military and development policy) must be increased as quickly as possible from the current 15 to 20 percent of the federal budget.

This is to be accomplished at the expense of social spending. The “peace dividend,” which consisted in reducing “spending on foreign and security policy in favour of social spending,” must be reversed, the SWP study demands.

In his recent speech on foreign policy to the Körber Foundation, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) expressed very similar views.

It should be noted that Merkel’s critics attack her mainly because of her refugee policy, although under her watch Europe’s external borders have been hermetically sealed off and refugees are being deported inhumanely from Germany, or detained in Turkey, Libya and other African countries.

The onslaught against refugees, the most exposed layer of society, is central to the right-wing turn underway across the political spectrum. All of the CDU politicians who are now being feted as a new generation to take over after Merkel—Spahn, Linnemann, Ziemiak, Kretschmer, Söder, etc.—demand tougher policies against refugees.

When leading business representatives cite Austria as role model, where the sister party of the CDU/CSU has formed a government alliance with the far-right Freedom Party, this makes clear that the far-right Alternative for Germany could soon be part of a government in Germany. An intensified offensive against the working class and aggressive great power politics once again requires the assistance of the far right.

No opposition to this course can be expected from the SPD, the Greens or the Left Party. They agree on all fundamental questions and share the view that Germany must pursue its foreign policy interests in a more aggressive manner in the face of the EU crisis and growing conflicts with the US and China. Left Party parliamentary leader Dietmar Bartsch has expressly supported Gabriel’s recent great power speech.

The demand for “more security”—more police and stepped up surveillance—is common to all parties represented in the Bundestag. As far as refugee policy is concerned, differences between the parties are purely verbal. They disappear as soon as one looks at what is happening in practice in the various federal states. Discrimination against refugees is just as marked in Thuringia (headed by a Left Party premier) as in Baden-Württemberg (Green Party premier) and Bavaria (CSU).

US president accuses China of illegal oil transfer to North Korea

Peter Symonds

US President Donald Trump has lashed out at China for supposedly failing to implement United Nations sanctions on North Korea. South Korea announced yesterday it had seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship, the Lighthouse Winmore, which allegedly transferred oil to a North Korean vessel in contravention of UN bans.

Trump provocatively tweeted: “Caught RED HANDED—very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!”

The Trump administration has ratcheted up UN sanctions, and unilateral US bans, on the Pyongyang regime in a campaign of “maximum pressure” to compel North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs. In contrast to this supposedly “friendly solution,” the president has threatened again and again to take military action against Pyongyang if it does not fall into line.

Trump’s denunciation of Beijing again demonstrates that the targeting of North Korea over its nuclear arsenal is aimed more broadly against China. The latest US National Security Strategy identifies China, along with Russia, as a major threat to American global dominance. The US military build-up in Asia against North Korea is also in preparation for war against China.

The latest Trump tweet smacks of a contrived provocation aimed at further ramping up tensions with China and North Korea. While South Korean officials announced the seizure of the Lighthouse Winmore, the information is more than a month old, and its release was clearly orchestrated in collaboration with Washington.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying flatly denied that China had anything to do with the alleged transfer of goods from the Lighthouse Winmore to a North Korean ship, saying it “did not accord with the facts.”

Hua pointed out: “In reality, the ship in question has, since August, not docked at a Chinese port and there is no record of it entering or leaving a Chinese port.” She insisted that China had “always implemented UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfills its international obligations.”

Neither the US nor South Korea has provided any evidence of Chinese involvement. South Korean authorities stated yesterday that the Lighthouse Winmore was seized in South Korea’s Yeosu Port on November 24, claiming the ship had transferred 600 tonnes of refined petroleum to a North Korean vessel.

The Hong Kong-flagged ship was chartered by the Taiwanese company Billions Bunker Group. It had previously visited Yeosu Port on October 11 to load Japanese-refined petroleum and left four days later, supposedly for Taiwan. However, according to South Korean officials, it transferred the oil to a North Korean ship, the Sam Jong 2, and three other non-North Korean vessels in international waters in the East China Sea.

The officials noted that South Korea had shared intelligence with the US for the detection of the illegal transaction. The US previously released satellite imagery showing a ship-to-ship transfer allegedly with a North Korean vessel.

UN sanctions limit, but do not ban, the export of oil to North Korea. However, a UN resolution in September prohibits the transfer of goods at sea to a North Korean ship. The US has called on the UN to blacklist 10 ships, including the Lighthouse Winmore, for allegedly carrying out illicit trade with North Korea.

Despite the lack of evidence of Chinese involvement, Trump threatened Beijing with trade war measures if it did not take stronger action against North Korea. In an interview yesterday with the New York Times, he said: “China’s hurting us very badly on trade, but I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war.”

In the interview, Trump repeated that he was disappointed with China for allowing oil to go to North Korea. He lashed out against China, saying “on trade [it] has ripped off this country more than any other element of the world in history has ripped off anything.” He pointed out that during last year’s presidential election he threatened to brand China as a currency manipulator, paving the way for trade war retaliation.

Trump then warned: “I can be different if they’re helping us with North Korea. If they don’t help us with North Korea, then I do what I’ve always said I want to do. China can help us much more, and they have to help us much more.”

Trump’s menacing threats against China and North Korea foreshadow a further escalation of tensions in the New Year. White House officials have repeatedly warned that time is running out for a “peaceful” end to the confrontation with Pyongyang.

Trump’s comments are a further indication that he wants nothing less than a total economic embargo on North Korea in order to bring it to its knees. Both China and Russia have been reluctant to support measures that would create an economic and political crisis in Pyongyang that would allow the US and its allies to intervene and fashion a pro-American puppet regime.

Yet the imposition of a naval blockade on North Korea appears to be among the options under consideration by the Trump administration as it prepares for war against Pyongyang. Asked yesterday whether the US navy would become involved in seizing vessels suspected of transferring oil to North Korea, US Defence Secretary James Mattis declared he would not speculate on future military operations, but did not rule out such action.

Any forcible boarding by the US navy of a North Korean ship would violate international law and greatly inflame an already extremely tense situation. Such an incident could trigger North Korean retaliation and rapidly escalate into a full-scale conflict that would drag in other major powers, such as China and Russia.

Protests erupt in Morocco after two die working in abandoned mine

Alex Lantier

A general strike brought the eastern Moroccan city of Jerada to a standstill yesterday after two men died in an accident in an abandoned coal mine there. Houcine and Jedouane Daioui, aged 30 and 23, were two of thousands of unemployed workers in Jerada who are forced by poverty and the lack of jobs to risk their lives every day, independently mining coal in unsafe conditions for a pittance. Both were married; Houcine leaves behind two children and Jedouane one.

In 2011, protests erupted in the former phosphate mining basin of southern Tunisia that ultimately led to revolutionary struggles that brought down President Zine El Abedine Bin Ali. Six years later, the ruling elite in North Africa and its imperialist allies in America and Europe have proved unable to resolve any of the problems that provoked the Tunisian uprising and the subsequent revolutionary mobilization of the working class in Egypt.

Houcine, Jedaouine and their surviving brother Abderrazak, age 22, all went on December 22 to gather coal to sell to local traders. Abderrazak, who was with his two brothers when they were killed, recounted the story of their deaths.

“We went down to 85 meters underground,” he told AFP. “Houcine and Jedouane were just under me. One of them was digging horizontally and hit a well of water. We were totally flooded. I held on very tight to the rope and I managed to come back up to the surface.” Tragically, his two brothers did not.

Abderrazak added that after the deaths of his two brothers, he will be alone in facing the financial burden of supporting his 80-year-old father, a former miner, together with his six brothers, his wife and his daughter. Abderrazak said that poverty and the lack of jobs and a future in Jerada, which force thousands to scrounge for coal in abandoned mines, were to blame for the deaths of his two brothers.

“There is no alternative, there is no work. That is why I risk my life. I earn between 100 and 150 dirhams [US$10.70-13.90] per day.” He added that he had been going down into abandoned mines to look for coal “for three or four years.”

During the deregulation of Moroccan electricity markets in the 1990s, authorities shut down the Jerada coal mine, the economic lifeline of the town, employing 9,000 of its 60,000 inhabitants. Jerada's population has since fallen to 43,000, as thousands left to find work elsewhere. Moroccan authorities claimed that the mine was too expensive to operate. Effectively, they washed their hands of any attempt to ensure workers' safety in the mine, which continued to operate unofficially, at prices set by private traders linked to multinational energy firms operating in the area.

“So the money from coal goes into the pockets of foreign corporations, leaving the youth to risk their lives in unofficial mines,” one inhabitant of Jerada told Morocco's La Dépêche. These corporations include French firms GDF-Suez and Lafarge, JLEC, the electricity operator of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates whose Moroccan operations are linked to France's Société Générale bank, and several Chinese firms including Sepco III.

The unofficial mines in Jerada are known as the “mines of death,” because of the steady flow of preventable accidents that kill those forced to work there. “Fatal accidents are frequent,” Abderrazak said, adding that he has now seen his “uncle and two young men of the family die.”

After the accident, Moroccan authorities acted with unconcealed contempt for the working population of Jerada. Civil protection units who arrived on the scene refused to help find the bodies, saying that the mine is too dangerous and that they refused even to enter it.

Jerada residents had to organize the search for the bodies inside the mine themselves. Once they found them, they demanded that the authorities guarantee pensions for the wives and children of Houcine and Jedouane before the burial of the two men. This demand was refused.

Instead, the authorities tried to secretly bury the two bodies on the night of December 23, without notifying the Daioui family. “Someone from the neighborhood alerted the family after seeing that two graves were being dug in the cemetery, right across from the morgue,” said Ahmed Bousmaha, of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH).

On December 24, most of the town mobilized in a protest march attended by tens of thousands of people. Protesters shouted slogans not only over the miners' deaths, but unaffordable prices for electricity and water that have led authorities to carry out a wave of utility shut-offs in the region, and demanding jobs and industrial development in the region.

That night, heavily reinforced police detachments assaulted youth who were guarding the Jerada cemetery against any new attempt by authorities to illicitly bury the two Dairoui brothers.

The Moroccan central government has turned a cold shoulder to protesters' demands. Asked about Jerada on December 25, Prime Minister Saâd Eddine El Othmani said that a judicial investigation was underway and that he refused to comment until it had produced a ruling. He added that he would “meet with parliamentarians of the Eastern region to discuss this tragedy that cost the lives of some of our citizens.”

Energy and Mines Minister Aziz Rebbah raised hopes of building a coal-fired power station near Jerada that could employ 500 people; in partnership with China's Qingdao Huafengweiye Electric Power Technology Engineering Co. This would only be a drop in the bucket, however: official statistics in Morocco show that in rural areas, fully half the population 15 years or older who have previously worked are now unemployed

The tragedy in Jerada underscores the bankrupt and criminal character not only of Morocco's monarchy, a long-time stooge of the imperialist powers, but of the entire international capitalist order. The combined efforts of European, Chinese, and Arab capital are incapable of providing decent jobs to North African workers. They are rather left to rot in unemployment or perish in unregulated workplaces like Jerada's “mines of death.”

The central lesson of these events, as of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of 2011, is that the only way forward is an international revolutionary struggle of the working class that consciously sets out to expropriate the capitalist class, take state power, and run economic life on the basis of social need. In this, the construction of an international revolutionary leadership in the working class is the main strategic question. Without this, the old Ben Ali regime and the Egyptian military regime were able to take back power and help impose redoubled exploitation on the region's workers.

With none of the issues that provoked the Tunisian uprising resolved, however, class tensions across the Maghreb have reached explosive levels. Last year, mass protests against unemployment exploded again in Tunisia.

Moroccan authorities are already facing recurring waves of protests in the nearby Rif region, after police crushed fish salesman Mouhcine Fikri to death last year in the compactor of a garbage truck, where they had dumped a catch of swordfish they claimed he had illegally purchased. Protests over the police murder of Fikri spread to the country's major cities including Casablanca, Rabat, Agadir, and Marrakesh. Now, protests are set to continue in Jerada and the surrounding region.